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Highlights: The back-to-back pairing of "Holly Rock" and "The Belle of St. Mary," the appropriately festive "Fiesta"

The crowd: Diverse and dancing.

The 2014 Alive at Five concert series ended the same way it started — at the rain site under the highway at the Corning Preserve Boat Launch — surely the most inhospitable music venue to be found anywhere in the region. And yet ,veteran singer-percussionist Sheila E. turned the evening into a party nonetheless.

"It's gonna be a lovely day, now that the rain is gone," she sang early on in her show during the bouncy, pop ballad, "Lovely Day," and sure enough, she somehow managed to chase the rain away for the rest of her performance.

While her solid, six-piece band kept the groove gliding along through the show, the veteran Sheila E. played bass ("Lovely Day"), electric guitar ("Rock Star") and drums (a nice four-minute solo to kick off the encores), but primarily she spiked the beat by playing timbales with featured solos during the hip-hop romp "Fiesta" and the fiery Latin encore of "Mona Lisa."

Sheila E. racked up Top 40 hits in the mid-'80s — notably "The Glamorous Life," "A Love Bizarre" and "The Belle of St. Mark" — and she dished them up with plenty of spark on Thursday evening. But she hadn't released a new album in more than a dozen years until this spring's "Icon," so it was no surprise the new material was the focus of her show. Fortunately, from the opening, hip-shaking "Leader of the Band" (co-written with her former boss/mentor Prince) to the rap-romp "Oakland N Da House" (re-written for the night as "Albany N Da House"), her new tunes were thoroughly engaging.

But Sheila E. almost allowed herself to be upstaged by back-up vocalist Lynn Mabry, who grabbed the mic for an extended soul medley that dipped into the songbags of the O'Jays, George Clinton, Sly Stone and the Stylistics.

Opening act Conehead Buddha delivered a solid hour-long set to kick off the evening's festivities in fine fashion. Led by guitarist-vocalist-percussionist Chris Fisher, the eight-piece Coxsackie-based band lived up to its genre-blending reputation and had many in the crowd dancing. Their seriously percolating set was highlighted by the Lain-flavored "Carbonation."